Wing Chun in Minneapolis

Reid Matko working on the 'mook jong'

In has been great meeting up with students from Ken Chung's lineage in Minneapolis. Even though the snow storm is running 8 inches thick, the visit has been worthwhile. I went down the taxi after a 30 minutes ride, freezing cold as it is below 0 degree. The school is located at the 6th Floor, 711 West Lake Street. Two gentlemen greeted me once I step in to the 'Gwoon'. Reid & Pete, trained under the Ken Chung and Ben Der's lineage. The interesting part was both of them have also trained in the Yuen Kay San style some time ago.

The class emphasized on developing the foundation properly - stances, forward energy, softness, etc. We started off with 'Siu Lim Tao', followed by the remaining forms and subsequently, training drills and applications. Comparing our forms, we noticed differences within the three Wing Chun forms – Siu Lim Tao, Chum Kiu & Biu Tzee, followed by some discussions on ….. why is it done this way or that way …. Why I’m not doing it like this, and like that……

Myself & Pete

More often, training with new partners enabled new insights into your techniques and applications. Most importantly, it is a different perspective - working with the same techniques differently - energy, angle and co-ordination. For instance, a 'tan sau' is issue not from the centerline but the side of the body. Robust yet strong! .... but some may argue it opens up too much of the centerline.

What I'm impressed is the practice of 'Chi Sao' under Ken Chung and Ben Der's style that focus a lot of forward energy, with both hands guarding the opponent’s arms near the elbow … close and hard to penetrate. This left me with some thoughts in brushing up my moves. The exchanges has left me to ponder in my long flight back to Kuala Lumpur .... the more I know, the more I realized that it is still a long path ahead.